Twilight
by usakeh
Summary: This story consists of some missing scenes from Noel and stars Josh and Leo.


_Because your candle burns too bright, well, I almost forgot it was twilight. Even if I think that you are right, well, I'm tired of being down, I got no fight._

(Twilight – Elliott Smith)

"I'm too smart for them." I slam my fist down onto Leo's coffee table. "I'm just too smart for all of them." I steady my breathing and look up at him, attempting a cocky grin. "They don't know what to make of me."

"That much I can believe." Leo's looking at me warily.

"I'm serious, though. I'm too smart for them. They aren't used to dealing with people who know what they're doing. I know what I'm doing. I'm the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. Of course I know what I'm doing." I wait for him to make a response, but he doesn't. "I know what I'm doing!" Why the hell isn't he answering me? Why isn't he saying anything? Why is he just staring at me like that? "So what do you have to say now? What do you want me to do now? What is it you want?" I don't like long silences when I'm with Leo, you know. He makes me feel like he can see right through me, see the way my hands are shaking even when I've got them clasped behind my back.

"Nothing, Josh."

"What?"

"I don't want you to do anything at all."

"You don't want me to do anything?" My voice is getting all high. I hate it when it does that. It makes me sound like a squeaky little kid. "You don't want me to do _anything_?" I keep repeating myself. Why the hell do I keep repeating myself?

"Even if I did want you to do something, I doubt you'd listen to me right now." Leo's speaking slowly. I don't know whether to find his matter-of-factness comforting, infuriating, or some strange mixture of both.

"Just _tell _me! I can't listen to you if you don't tell me now, can I? Think game theory. You can't lose. You can only win. You can only–"

"I want you to take the damn pills." I'm tempted to make a snide comment but I cut myself off right as I start to speak. I do have some self-control, you see. Of course I have self-control. I'm the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. "I want you to take the damn pills and get some rest."

"If I take them I'll fall asleep," I protest. I've given up on trying to make the pitch of my voice descend to a normal level. It seems to have permanently gotten stuck at the "squeaky" setting.

"That's precisely the point, Josh. They'll make you quit panicking and calm down so you can get some rest. You need sleep."

"I'm not panicking!" I'm not panicking. I'm just anxious, annoyed, aggravated. I'm not panicking. I'm really not. "I'm just frustrated with this. That's all. I'm not panicking. I'm angry. I'm _angry_." Leo's not speaking and I hate long silences so I've started babbling, somehow, and I can't seem to bring myself to stop. I reach out towards the cup of tea Leo's placed on the table for me and tentatively raise it up towards my lips. I need both hands to keep it steady; as it is a few drops still spill out and drip down towards the ground.

"Josh." I return the cup to the table and look back up at Leo. "Do you tell your therapist these things?"

"That I'm angry?" I get to my feet and start pacing.

"That you feel like this."

"Like what?"

"Don't play games with me, Josh. You know exactly what I mean. Do you tell your therapist these things?"

"Weren't you listening at all to what I told you? He doesn't understand me! I'm too smart for therapy, okay?" It sounds arrogant, but I don't care.

"You're too smart to tell the truth so that you can get some help?"

"Yes! No! I'm too smart for anyone to understand me, okay? They aren't used to dealing with people like me."

"People like you?" I pause my pacing for a moment and approach Leo again.

"People like me." I take a deep breath, my sudden burst of confidence disappearing and leaving me feeling strange and shaky. "I'm fine, really. My – my problems aren't that important. They're not that bad. I – I mean, he's a trauma specialist."

"So?"

"He deals with war veterans. People who were held as hostages. Abused children."

"Gunshot victims."

"Yeah. But not ones like me. I'm fine. I'm really _fine_." I sit back down, slipping off my shoes and pulling my legs up onto the sofa. "I'm fine." I feel like I'm on the verge of saying something stupidly sentimental, like, "I try so hard." I try so hard, you see. I can't even count the number of times I've sat in meetings feeling like my heart was going to burst from the fear and just waited it out; I can't even count the number of times I've stood up straight and still when every inch of me was screaming to run out; I can't even count the number of times I've made myself stop and then start again, and again, and again. I try so hard. I try so _hard_. "But it's no big deal. He doesn't even think it's a big deal. He just thinks I'm some pampered politician, or something."

"Is it a big deal to you?"

"Is it a big deal to me? No! Of course it isn't. It's not. It isn't a big deal to anyone. I just get panic attacks and I get anxious. That's all it is. I try really hard to stop it when it happens. I can't take the pills because they make me sleepy all the time and I have to work." This is what I mean about the babbling. I almost feel as though I've stepped outside my body and am watching from a distance as some sort of shadow-Josh speaks on and on without knowing what it is he's talking about. "And I can't tell him, and even when I do he doesn't understand because I'm too articulate, too skilled at twisting words to my advantage. I'm brilliant at that, Leo. It's my job; it's what I do. I'm the master of misdirection. I can evade every question and win every argument. It's what I do. And I'm good at it! I'm–"

"I know you are, Josh." Why does he sound sad as he says it? "I know you are," he repeats, staring straight across at me. I do my best not to flinch under his scrutiny. Leo had very deep eyes, you know. When he turns them towards you it's like he's searching down into you, illuminating the sides of yourself you don't like to let anybody else see.

"I know! So that's why. I can't tell him. I'm too smart for therapy; I'm too smart for all of them. They won't understand me. And it doesn't even matter! I don't need them to understand me! I don't need anybody to understand me. I'm self-reliant. Independent. I've always prided myself on that and – and it isn't even a big deal. It's not. It's not." I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around my legs. It's strange, really, the way I'm shifting back and forth between complete confidence and the frightful feeling that I'm slowly spiraling out of control. I'm a very controlling person, you see. I know what I'm doing. That's just how I am.

"Then why are you sitting here like this, Josh?" Leo asks the question in the slow, deliberate voice he uses when he's about to make a big decision. "Why aren't you home working? Why aren't you using your talents where they're actually needed instead of spending your time confusing yourself?" He sighs deeply. "I know because I did the very same thing, Josh. I did it for a long, long, long time."

"Did what?" Now my voice isn't just squeaky. It's actually shaking.

"Lived like that." He pauses. "It took me years to admit that I was an alcoholic. But it took me ten more years to understand what that meant." He's silent again. This time I wait quietly, leaning back against the side of the sofa. "Sure, I went to the AA meetings. I did everything that I was supposed to do. I just didn't do the single most important thing." He's staring down at the table now, forehead furrowed deeply. "I didn't give myself a break."

"You didn't–"

"Hear me out, Josh." He looks back up again. "I never ruined my life over it. I could keep a job. I wasn't _like _the other alcoholics."

"You never completely lost control." I say it flatly, as if it doesn't even matter to me. Maybe it doesn't. I feel like I'm drifting away again, watching myself from afar. "You never completely lost control and even when you did it was only for a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours. You could always hold yourself back." There's a line, you know. There's a line between seeing the mountain spread out below you and wanting to slam the plane straight down into it and actually clutching hold of the controls until the final crash. I've tread about it so many times I've become quite well acquainted with it. Did you ever wonder if you were suicidal too, Josh? I never wondered that, Stanley. I knew. But I knew just as well that I'd never do it. "You weren't like the other alcoholics because they couldn't keep it together but you could. You tried so hard to do it and you _did_. You did. You–"

"Don't go down that road, Josh." Leo leans back in his chair, casting his gaze up towards the ceiling and then staring back at me. "Don't." The sound spirals out into the silence and stays there. Only Leo could ever fill a room so completely with one single word. Only Leo could make me feel so–

–so small, suddenly. I feel so small. I'm the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and I'm not _like _that and I can handle it and it's not such a big deal but suddenly I feel as small as the squeaky little kid I know I'll sound like again as soon as I open my mouth. Taking a deep breath, I place my feet back on the ground and lean forward, head in hands.

"Okay." I take another deep breath. I'm going to stay calm. I'm going to stay calm. I'm going to stay calm. "Okay. I–"

"Take the pills and go to sleep."

"I – I need to work."

"Take the pills and do some work until you fall asleep."

"I – okay." I close my eyes for a second. Maybe I do need to sleep; I've been zoning out all day. I'll be in the middle of a sentence and forget what it was I'm trying to say, or I'll be telling someone about a bill that's about to get passed and blank out on the name. I never blank out on names. I've an excellent memory. I got a 760 on the verbal section of the SAT, after all.

"Josh?" I open my eyes again.

"What?"

"Take the pills and go to sleep." Leo sighs.

"I will. I'll – I'll just do some work in between. Until I get sleepy, that is."

"You look pretty sleepy to me."

"I'm not. I was just – I was just resting." For the first time all day I feel myself start to smile. "I was just resting."

"The pills–"

"They're in my backpack. I'll–"

"Front pocket?"

"Yeah."

"You want water or orange juice?"

"Water, but I'll–"

"I'll get it." Leo shuffles off towards the kitchen; a minute later he returns with a glass of water and a plate with my pills and a cookie on it. A cookie! I rub my eyes and sniffle, slightly. Not that I was crying or going to cry or anything. I just have a cold. Leo sets the plate and glass down on the table and sits back down. I take a deep breath and smile, slightly. I like how he put the cookie there, just so the pills didn't look so lonely on the plate. "Feeling better?" I drink down the water and turn back up towards Leo.

"Feeling better?"

"You have a sore throat. I was going to heat up the water, but–"

"It's okay." I can't wipe the silly smile off my face now. It's strange, you know. A few minutes ago I felt like all my thoughts were crashing and colliding together so quickly that my mind was going to burst wide open; now I feel safer, somehow. I feel small – but I feel safer, so I don't much mind feeling small. I almost like it. I don't get to feel small very often, you see. I'm the White House Deputy Chief of Staff. I don't have time for it. "Thanks," I say. Leo nods.

"Thanks for stopping by."

"I'm – I'm sorry I didn't call in advance." I'd meant to go out to the grocery store but had stopped at a traffic light for so long that my fingers mysteriously froze there on the steering wheel. The car behind me started beeping but I'd just stayed there, scared of every surrounding sound. I was a flag flapping so wildly in the breeze that I'd been about to blow away. "I should have–"

"It's fine." He pauses. "Now, get to work." Leo gestures towards my backpack. "You've a lot to do tomorrow." From anybody else it would be brusque. From Leo it's nothing less than comforting. I get up slowly and slip a folder out of my overstuffed backpack; yawning, I begin to read. I scan the pages sleepily, pulling out a pen and underlining the most important passages.

"Is it bad if I put my feet on your sofa?" My eyes are already starting to close when I ask the question. He didn't say anything when I did it before but some people are really fussy about their furniture. I mean, if it had been Sam's sofa, he wouldn't have spoken to me for weeks. "I know I didn't ask you before, but–"

"Go ahead." Leo's still sitting in the chair opposite me, glasses on and face focused on the morning's edition of the Washington Post.

"Okay," I reply, curling up on the couch. I'm fighting to stay awake without really knowing why, anymore.

"You're falling asleep on me, aren't you?" Leo's voice cracks a bit sometimes when he's in a good mood. I smile weakly.

"Yeah."

"Good." I stare up towards him. He's smiling too. "Good, Josh." He's getting up from his seat; now he's standing right beside me. I yawn again, shifting my position on the sofa. "Your back still bothering you?"

"A little," I admit. "But it's okay." Leo leans over slightly. I see his hand reach out towards me. I feel it start to rub against the soreness in my back. "Feels good," I mumble. My eyes are closing.

"I'll wake you in the morning, okay?" I nod.

"Okay." I'm the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, you know. I don't usually like feeling so small. But I don't mind it, now.


End file.
